Sure of You

by Armistead Maupin

“Is he there?”

  “No.”

  “Is that her?” asked Thack, not exactly sotto voce.

  Michael gave him an annoyed nod and turned away. “I’ll tell him you called, O.K.?”

  “No. Don’t. You’re the one I wanted.”

  “What for?”

  “She’s gonna suck you in.” Thack was being a real pain. Michael gave him a dirty look and walked out of the kitchen. The cordless model came in handy sometimes.

  “How ’bout a date, Mouse?”

  In the living room, he collapsed on the sofa and kicked off his shoes. “Come again?”

  “Don’t make this hard on me,” she said.

  “Well, what are you talking about?”

  “I’ve got tickets to this open house tonight.” She paused dramatically. “Would you like to go with me?”

  “Babycakes…look…”

  “I feel so ganged up on, Mouse.” Her voice was small and plaintive.

  “Well, you shouldn’t,” he said, melting fast.

  “How can I not?” She sounded almost on the verge of tears. “Come with me, Mouse. Just so we can talk. We don’t have to stay long.”

  “If you just wanna talk, can’t we just…?”

  “I have to be there. I’m committed. I thought Brian would be here when I told them…”

  “Oh…so you need a walker.”

  Her response was grave and wounded. “You know that’s not true. I just thought we could…”

  “Kill two birds with one stone?”

  The silence was so long he wondered if she’d hung up. “Why am I so awful?” she said at last. “What did he tell you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Well, why are you acting like this?”

  He heaved a sigh of resignation.

  “I thought you’d enjoy it,” she said. “It’s black tie, and it’s in this beautiful house out at Sea Cliff.”

  Thack, of course, saw his acquiescence as something just short of betrayal.

  “Give me a break,” Michael argued. “I can’t stop seeing her just because they’re…”

  “Why not? She dumped him, didn’t she? That’s clear enough.”

  “And we men have got to stick together. Is that it?”

  Thack frowned. “What do our dicks have to do with it?”

  “A lot, if you ask me.”

  “You think I’m being sexist?”

  Michael shrugged. “Maybe unconsciously.”

  “Well, you’re full of shit, then.”

  “I didn’t say…”

  “Is that what she told you? That this was the men versus one poor little woman?”

  “No.”

  “She’s jerking you around, Michael. Just the way she does him. She’ll say anything to get what she wants.”

  “And women aren’t supposed to do that.”

  “Nobody’s supposed to do that! It’s got nothing to do with sexism. You know I’m not a sexist. Why are you so blind about this? I don’t get it.”

  Michael let him calm down for a moment. “You haven’t known her as long as I have.”

  “Well, maybe I can see her more clearly, then.”

  “Maybe you can.” He sighed. “You want me to cancel?”

  “Do what you want to do.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “I’m not gonna lie to Brian about it.”

  “I don’t expect you to.” Michael’s tone was glacial as he left the room. “I hadn’t planned to myself.”

  His tux was spotted in several places and required major sponging. His dress shirt was clean, but he ended up stapling the cuffs, since he couldn’t find his cuff links and he wasn’t about to ask Thack for his. His beeper went off in the middle of this procedure, causing him to fling down the stapler and skulk off in search of water.

  Back in the bedroom, he sat on the bed and finished dressing. As he put on his socks, he spotted something on his ankle—his lower calf, really—that he hadn’t noticed before. He leaned over to look at it.

  “Hey,” said Thack, walking into the room, “if you wanna wear my red cummberbund, go ahead.”

  Michael didn’t answer.

  “What is it?”

  “Come here a second. Look at this.”

  His lover came to the bed. “Where?”

  “There.”

  Thack studied the purplish inflammation, touching it lightly with his forefinger.

  “Does that look like it?”

  No answer.

  “It does to me.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Thack. “It looks like a zit or something. Something healing. Look at the edges of it.”

  When had he ever seen a zit down there? “The color seems right, though.”

  “Go see August, then, if it worries you. Isn’t tomorrow your day for pentamidine?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’ll put your mind at ease, anyway.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sure it’s nothing,” said Thack, shaking Michael’s knee. “I’ll get the cummerbund.”

  Mary Ann had done a show that morning on baby evangelists, so that was what they talked about on the long drive to Sea Cliff. His guess was that the heavier stuff would come later, when they were both feeling a little more sure of each other.

  The fog in Sea Cliff was as dense as he had ever seen it. The house was seventies modern, a cluster of multileveled metallic boxes with thick glass walls overlooking the ocean. Flash-cubes of the Gods, he thought, as Mary Ann turned the Mercedes over to a valet parker.

  “What’s the deal here?” he asked. The lights along the path glowed soft and spongy in the fog. Out on the darkling plain of the Golden Gate there were horns bleating like lost sheep.

  “We just walk through and look at it,” she said. “It’s a benefit for the ballet.”

  “Whose house is it?”

  “I don’t know, really. Some guy who died. He left a provision in his will that they could let people see it after he died.”

  “How odd.”

  “Well…he was a realtor.” She shrugged as if this explained it.

  Suddenly it hit him. “Arch Gidde. Was that his name?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “That’s it.”

  “Christ.”

  “You knew him?”

  “Not very well. Jon did. He used to come here all the time.”

  “This Gidde guy was gay?”

  “What did you think he died of?”

  “Prue said it was liver cancer or something.”

  “Right,” said Michael.

  “Well…I guess he has a right to his privacy.”

  Michael knew what Thack would have said to that.

  The house was nicer than he’d imagined, but this was hardly the night to show off its view. The fog pressed against the windows like a fat lady in ermine. While Mary Ann sought out “somebody in charge,” he loitered in the living room and gave the place an embarrassed once-over. It seemed a little callous to be checking out the digs of a dead man, even with the blessing of the deceased.

  He remembered the day the realtor had propositioned him at the nursery—back when it was still God’s Green Earth. Arch had come in for primroses and recognized Michael as an ex-lover of Jon’s. Moving in for the kill, he had stuffed a business card into Michael’s overalls and made an overt and clumsy reference to owning a Betamax.

  Now “Betamax” had the ring of “Gramophone,” and the travertine reaches of Arch Gidde’s living room, circa 1976, seemed as quaintly archival as a Victorian parlor preserved in a museum. The focal point was a gleaming chrome fireplace (with a matching chrome bin for the logs). Facing the hearth was a pair of enormous Italian sofas—pale arcs of buttery leather, burnished over the years by the endless buffing of gym-toned asses. The only thing missing was a lone anthurium in a crystal vase.

  He could picture Jon here easily, sprawled in the golden light like some surly sweater spread out of GQ. He had been a mess in those days, but he had changed dramatically toward the end,
and that freer, more forgiving person was the one Michael chose to remember.

  “Wait till you see the bedroom.”

  Mary Ann was back, taking his arm at the bar as he ordered a Calistoga.

  “Is it nice?”

  “The walls are brown suede. And padded. It’s such a womb.”

  “What are you drinking?”

  “Nothing. No, fuck that. A white wine.”

  “Hey,” said Michael. “Wild woman.”

  She smiled at him. “I’m so glad you’re with me.”

  When their drinks came, he lifted his to hers. “To things getting better.”

  She took a sip, then said: “Why am I no good at this, Mouse?”

  “At what?”

  “Ending things.”

  “Oh.”

  “I wanted so much not to hurt him…to do it the right way…”

  “You think there is one?”

  “One what?”

  “A right way.”

  “I don’t know.” She took a sip of her wine. “I guess if I’d told him earlier…”

  “Yeah.”

  “I know I’m doing what has to be done. But even so…I feel like such a piece of shit, you know?” She looked at him almost reverently, as if she was expecting absolution.

  “Well, c’mon…you’re not a piece of shit.”

  The room was beginning to fill up. It seemed to make her uneasy. “Why don’t we get away from the bar?” she said.

  “Fine.”

  They found a quieter spot—a den of sorts—on a lower level. “The thing is,” she said, continuing where she’d left off, “I can’t ever remember what it was like when I did feel something toward him. I wake up some mornings, and I look at him, and I think: How did this happen?”

  What did she expect him to say to that?

  “I mean…I remember feeling it, but I don’t remember how it felt. Like that time at the candlelight vigil…”

  “Harvey Milk’s?”

  “John Lennon’s.”

  “Oh, yeah.” He smiled, remembering it too. Brian had bought strawberry-scented candles to invoke “Strawberry Fields.” He and Mary Ann had spent hours on the Marina Green, paying homage to the world’s most celebrated househusband, then returned to Barbary Lane bleary-eyed and exultant.

  “He was so sweet,” said Mary Ann. “And afterwards he left this note on my door that said: ‘Help me if you can, I’m feeling down, and I do appreciate your being ’round.’”

  Michael nodded.

  “It was so completely him. So overblown and corny and really nice.” She smiled wanly. “I wish to hell I could feel that now.”

  “You must. You’re telling me about it.”

  “Only what I remember. Remembering’s different.”

  “But you must at least feel…”

  “Not a thing, really.” She paused and gazed bleakly out at the fog. “Just a little sorry for him sometimes.” Turning, she looked directly at him, her eyes brimming with tears. “If that makes me a bitch, I can’t help it.”

  He took her hand. “It doesn’t make you a bitch.”

  She began to weep quietly. When he tried to take her in his arms, she pulled away. “No, Mouse, I can’t. I’ll come unglued.”

  “Be my guest.”

  “No. Not here.”

  A clubby-looking woman appeared in the doorway. “Oh, isn’t this nice? Is this the study?”

  “The orgy room,” said Michael.

  The woman tittered briefly, nervously, before her face fell like a soufflé and she retreated.

  “You’re terrible.” Mary Ann wiped her eyes.

  “Well…it probably was.”

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Fine by me,” he said. “You wanna get some coffee in the Avenues?”

  “Oh, that sounds wonderful.”

  “I know a perfect place.”

  “I knew you would,” she said, squeezing his arm.

  They were nearly out the door when Mary Ann spotted the shining, sculpted faces of Russell and Chloe Rand, floating through the crowd like a pair of beacons. She stopped in her tracks. “Mouse, look…”

  “Yeah.”

  “We should say hello, don’t you think?”

  “I thought we were…”

  “They must be back from L.A.”

  “Must be.”

  He followed dutifully as she plowed through the throng. For a fleeting moment, when she reached back to take his hand, he thought he knew how it felt to be her husband.

  Nickel-Dime Stuff

  IT WAS A GENERIC VALLEY, A DARK BOWL TWINKLING WITH porch lights and undistinguished by landmarks. There was neither bridge nor bay nor pyramid to tip you off that this was San Francisco, but—to Brian, at least—it couldn’t have been anywhere else in the world.

  Thack joined him on the deck, gazing out at the fleecy fog. “They must be socked in out at Sea Cliff.”

  “I guess so.”

  “There’s some Häagen-Dazs in the freezer.”

  “Maybe later.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Brian. He wasn’t upset.”

  “Are you sure? I know I shouldn’t’ve brought up Jon like that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well…you know…a dead guy.”

  Thack smiled at him. “We talk about dead guys all the time.”

  Brian nodded absently.

  “It’s just the way it is.”

  “I guess so.”

  “He was defending Mary Ann, right? And it got out of hand.”

  “More or less,” said Brian.

  “Well…serves him right. He shouldn’t walk the fence so much.”

  Brian was surprised by this cavalier reaction. “He’s known her a long time,” he said in Michael’s defense.

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t expect him to take my side, just because…”

  “He knows that,” said Thack. “He also knows you’re getting a bum deal. The trouble is he wants everyone to like him. He works at it way too hard. He’s spent so much time being a good little boy that he’s never figured out which people aren’t worth it.”

  Brian figured this was said for his benefit. To convince him that what he was about to lose was nothing of value, nothing worth crying over. He didn’t buy it.

  Thack kept his eyes on the fog bank. “Where’d you go after work? We were worried about you.”

  “Just out for some brews.”

  “You holding up O.K.?”

  “Yeah.” He looked at Thack sideways. “You must be tired of hearing me piss and moan.”

  “Nah.”

  “It’s nickel-dime stuff, though, compared to what you and Michael have to deal with.”

  Thack shrugged. “We’ve all gotta deal with something.”

  “Maybe, but…”

  “If Michael were leaving, I wouldn’t consider it nickel-dime.” He gave Brian a sleepy smile. “You’re entitled to be miserable.”

  There was another long silence.

  Brian asked: “Doesn’t it scare you?”

  “What? Michael?”

  “Yeah.”

  Thack seemed to sort something out for a moment. “Sometimes I watch him when he’s playing with Harry or digging in the yard. And I think: This is it, this is the guy I’ve waited for all my life. Then this other voice tells me not to get used to it, that it’ll only hurt more later. It’s funny. You’re feeling this enormous good fortune and waiting for it to be over at the same time.”

  “You seem happy,” Brian ventured.

  “I am.”

  “Well…that’s a lot. I envy you that.”

  Thack shrugged. “All we’ve got is now, I guess. But that’s all anybody gets. If we wasted that time being scared…”

  “Absolutely.”

  “You ready for that ice cream?” said Thack.

  In the Loo

  THE RANDS, BLESS THEIR HEARTS, HAD GREETED HER like an old friend, obviously tickled to see a familiar face at yet another alien b
enefit. They were a little slow in coming up with Michael’s name, so she let them off the hook right away.

  “…and you remember Michael.”

  “Of course,” said Chloe.

  Russell extended his hand. “Sure thing. How’s it going?”

  “Great,” Michael told him.

  “Were you on the way out?” Chloe asked.

  “Well…”

  “Oh, don’t be. I’m sure we don’t know a soul.”

  “Yeah,” said Russell, addressing Michael. “Stay and keep us company.”

  “Well, O.K.,” said Mary Ann. “Sure.”

  “Fabulous.”

  “How was the benefit?”

  Chloe’s high ivory forehead furrowed.

  “Didn’t you go to some AIDS benefit in L.A.?”

  “Oh, sure,” said Russell. “It was very nice. Very moving.”

  “Right,” said Chloe. “I spaced out for a second.” She perused the crowded foyer. “Is it this packed everywhere?”

  Michael replied: “It’s better once you get past the bar.”

  “Actually,” said Chloe, “I have to pee like crazy. Know where the loo is?”

  “C’mon, I’ll show you.” Mary Ann took her hand, feeling sisterly and conspiratorial all of a sudden.

  Chloe looked back at her husband. “Can you boys play on your own for a while?”

  “Sure,” said Russell.

  Michael shot a glance at Mary Ann. One of those stranded-puppy-dog looks that Brian was so fond of giving her.

  “We won’t be long,” she told him.

  The bathroom designated for women was gleaming black onyx, huge.

  “So,” said Chloe, “I’m dying to know. I didn’t wanna ask in front of your husband.”

  This threw her for a moment. “Oh…Michael’s not my husband.”

  “Oh. Shit. The other guy…”

  “Right.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s O.K.,” she said. “Really.”

  “So…what’s the verdict on the show?”

  Mary Ann gave a sheepish shrug. “I’m gonna do it.”

  Chloe squealed and hugged her. Though she had never actually experienced it, Mary Ann felt like a freshman at a sorority rush night. “Tell me I won’t be sorry,” she said.

  “You won’t be sorry. How’s that?”

  Mary Ann smiled at her gamely.